This may need to be a poll, but we’ll see first if there’s much interest in the general topic(s).
I began collecting LPs in the '50’s and continued that until the '80’s, at which point it became cassettes, followed soon by CDs. I haven’t bought any of those things in years.
Nowadays my “personal music” comes from:
– YouTube – got to be at least 50%
– Pandora – maybe 20%
– Spotify – more like 10%
– Radio (usually over the computer) – less than 10%
– TV – less than 10% unless it’s from PBS
And I’m not counting the “music” I make myself on a guitar.
My music is now almost entirely on CD. While I sometimes download, it’s only a song here and there when I don’t want the whole album.
I live in fear that my desktop will drop dead, and all that music (6000+ songs) I have on iTunes will be lost. If I have most of it on CD, then I can reproduce if needed.
I have similar concerns about iTunes and thus have never gotten into that method of having music around. I have yet to pay anything for either Spotify or Pandora and don’t plan to. What’s kind of weird is how many duplicates (even triplicates) I have of the same album because of the LP-tape-CD upgrades and the need to have that album on the newer device. I’m sure I have at least three versions of at least 20 albums. And now I only listen to that music online!
My wife has a huge iTunes collection and does listen to some of it on her iPhone.
I’m 47, so I’ve been collecting music for over 30 years, and yes, went through the format-to-format changes as well. At one point I had every album from Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and The Doors on cassette, vinyl, and CD. Nowadays I tend to purchase new music online (iTunes or Amazon), but I don’t tend to buy much new music any more. My music files are backed up both online and locally, so I don’t much fear a crash (indeed I had a crash about a year ago when my old computer died and restoring the collection was mostly painless). I still pick up CDs for some stuff, mostly remasters where liner notes might be interesting, or even just to ensure the higher-fidelity backup of the disc is always available.
Listening is almost exclusively via iTunes (the vast majority of my library there is ripped from CDs I own) on the computer when I’m home, and I do use my iPhone to listen when I’m out. Occasionally I’ll check out Pandora online, and usually I’ll have the local classic rock station on the radio in the morning.
Started with records, then cassettes and CD. I’d say at this point about a third of my collection is CD’s and 2/3 is music I’ve downloaded from iTunes. I export the iTunes music and backup onto my external drive and laptop, so between 3 drives I hope I wouldn’t lose it all. Pandora is good fill-in music for me and I listen to it at work all the time.
Yes, but that’s only the limited number of songs/tracks that I’ve paid for from iTunes. There must be some way to copy my iTunes liberarry onto the cloud, but I ain’t figgered it out.
I may be mistaken, but doesn’t the iTunes Cloud allow that?
I did the usual LP>tape (skipping 8-track and DAT)>CD>digital thing that most have done. At one point I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder, but those all went in the landfill. I still have some LPs from the 60s, including the first Hendrix and Joplin albums. I uploaded most of my CDs. My wife had a lot of jazz albums that I digitized and then donated to the local jazz station. I really need to finish up that project. Mostly, we listen to either the local jazz station or the SF jazz station on our Sonos, which also has the option to play my music library.
I finally gave away most of my CDs recently because they took up too much space, and since everything I really like is on my iTunes/iPod anyway, I didn’t need to sacrifice that space. We do have a few dozens records and a record player and that collection is growing slowly.
I’ve never looked at the cloud storage option, but if you have an iPod you can also use programs like CopyTrans to get the music from your iPod back onto your computer in the event of hard drive death. I just did that a couple of months ago and it worked great.
I am still on CDs and cassettes. I lug CDs out to the car and listen to them on my stereo. I don’t have an MP3 player or smartphone or anything like that.
I live with my father and he has vinyl and reel-to-reel tape (as well as cassettes and CDs).
Pretty much the same here. I gave away most of my CDs to a friend who helped me move… probably a few thousand. Kept a few artists I “collect,” perhaps a couple dozen albums, whatever might be in combo CD/DVD packages, and occasionally pick up a new-to-me title if it costs less than just buying it as a digital download (then I just rip it and put it in storage). Kept the record player and records, a couple of hundred.
By percentage of listening time:
mp3s/iTune/Amazon tracks: 70%
radio: 15%
YouTube and other video sites: 5%
LD/DVD/Blu Ray music video compilations/concerts: 5%
LPs/remaining CDs: 0% (I know what’s getting purged in my next move!)
Never really got into any of the streaming services beyond a few months’ use of Pandora.
I kept the CDs and junked the jewel cases. I bought a buttload of CD slipcovers that can store two CDs per cover. I also kept the inserts that tell what’s on the CDs and they live in a separate storage folder. But I only had 900 or so; people with enormous collections must have a bitch of a time with storage.
When I download something from iTunes, it’s on my computer. I then back it up to a backup hard drive. Therefore, when a computer bites the dust, I still have the music/video/whatever.
What am I missing? (Note that I don’t have an iPod/Pad/Phone)
I started buying music in the late 50s, collecting 78s, LPs, 45s, 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs. I’ve downloaded all my CDs into iTunes, and that’s all I listen to.
I have almost 2,000 CDs (27,285 tracks) in iTunes. Most of them are from my CD collection, though some are downloaded from various sources online. Lately I’ve been buying used “like new” CDs from Amazon, and have been happy with my purchases. I do read liner notes, and without these I don’t feel that I really “own” the albums.
Everything is backed-up to an external hard drive. I had to re-download my entire collection once, and I want to avoid having to do that again.
I just shit-canned the last cassette player that I actually used (the truck and BMW still have them, but also multi-disc units, so I don’t use 'em). It was in my Jeep, which is only used off-road and not ideal for a disc player. But a tape broke and got stuck in it, beyond repair, so I stuck in a cheapy CD player that has a aux jack for am MP3 player.
So, now I got a crate of records, boxes of cassettes and a wall full of CDs that go largely unused. I rip all the CDs then make “mix-discs” for the CD player in the shop. Got a Pioneer that holds 100. Got right around 11,000 songs in Windows Media Player. Started using a thumb-drive in the house.
Yep. My whole collection is digital (either from ripping from CDs or purchasing on iTunes/Amazon/whatever. I have my music backed up twice on external hard drives, in case one gets corrupted.
Worst case you can re-import them from the original CDs.
iTunes does have a Match feature that will let you download or stream copies of music that you imported from your own CDs. Similar to copying your library to the cloud, except they already have copies so there’s no need to duplicate them. So that should cover it if you don’t mind paying the yearly fee.
Alternatively, just back up your library to an external HDD. You should do that for your whole computer anyway.
I lug CDs out to the car and listen to them on my stereo. I don’t have an MP3 player or smartphone or anything like that.